Patrick Diamond, former adviser to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, is right to focus on Labour's economic policy after Eastleigh (One Nation? Not Yet, 1 March), but is still fixated on "fiscal discipline" (for which read "cutting less far, less fast") without any obvious plan for growth. Nobody is going to recommend fiscal incontinence, but merely tweaking the disastrous Osborne cuts agenda a bit won't remotely produce recovery. With a worse recovery than even in the 30s, a deficit in traded goods now exceeding £100bn a year, a 6% fall in real incomes and an imminent and unprecedented triple-dip recession, the emphasis must now be overwhelmingly on a real growth strategy.

That does not mean balancing the books by a further growth-destroying orgy of cuts, but rather by a radical reduction in today's grossly excessive unemployment level of 2.5 million. That would hugely cut the benefits bill (it costs £7bn a year to keep a million people on the dole), increase government tax receipts to pay off the deficit, and provide much-needed social housing, enhanced energy and transport infrastructure, and lay the foundations for the future low-carbon economy. And this is quite consistent with fiscal prudence.

Instead of handing another £50bn of quantitative easing to the banks, the same sum could be directly invested to generate over 1.5 million jobs within two years. Or RBS and Lloyds (82% and 43% state-owned), instead of being privatised could be instructed to prioritise lending for an agreed manufacturing strategy. Or the £155bn wealth gains of the 0.1% ultra-rich over the last three years could be taxed to fund a million jobs. Or borrowing £30bn at today's 0.5% ultra-low interest rates would cost just £150m, but still kickstart growth and put a million or more back to work. Even the markets would approve of that.Michael Meacher MPLab, Oldham West and Royton

• Ukip's success challenging the main parties gives new meaning to Ed Miliband's term "the squeezed middle", but Labour needs to keep its nerve and resist the temptation to fall in and follow the rest of the pack off to the right, stirring up fears (Report, 1 February). UK residents born overseas are not the reason for low pay, high housing costs or austerity-driven attacks on welfare any more than those of us born here, and a progressive "one nation" party needs to say that clearly, loudly and frequently.Les BrightExeter, Devon

• The media must be congratulating itself on correctly predicting that the Tories would be driven into third place behind Ukip in Eastleigh but they've contributed in no small measure to Ukip's success. From the moment that campaigning began, Ukip's chances were being talked up at the expense of other groups who don't have the same funding and rely on media coverage to raise their profiles. Apart from the candidates representing the three major parties and Ukip, the other 10 standing were mostly ignored.

Some of them may be classed as frivolous participants but that does not apply to the National Health Action party or Trades Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts. I find it curious that press and TV, normally so keen to run stories about the NHS or the unions when they're involved in scandals or strikes, are so reluctant to investigate the reasons why such bodies no longer trust the established parties to represent them.Karen BarrattWinchester, Hampshire

• Marilyn Birks (Letters, 1 March) bemoans the people who might believe in Labour's values voting for the Lib Dems because they don't believe Labour could win. If a large number of Labour heavyweights hadn't opposed the alternative vote in the referendum, purely to give the Lib Dems a short-term bloody nose, this long-term problem with our electoral system could have been solved.Richard MillerWhitstable, Kent

• It's the economy, stupid. If Cameron had sacked Osborne and brought in someone more obviously willing to stimulate growth safely, I bet the Ukip threat would have faded.Christopher McDouallCambridge